


Something in my heart then crystallised

by asterismal (asterisms)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Christmas Decorations, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Harry doesn't realize how much, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Past Child Abuse, Pet Names, Voldemort is in love, holiday feels, until he does
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:20:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21919741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asterisms/pseuds/asterismal
Summary: "This room is the perfect size for a tree,” Harry says.“A tree?” Tom asks, dubious.“Yeah,” Harry says. When he gets no response, he looks up over his shoulder to see Tom is watching him with furrowed brows. “You know, a Christmas tree.”He looks toward the corner of the room, which is bare but for a spare chair that no one ever uses. Tom follows Harry’s gaze then asks, voice flat, “Why?”In which Harry remembers a promise he made to himself long ago and decides it's time to fulfill it. AKA: In which Harry and Tom decorate a Christmas tree together. Eventually.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Tom Riddle, Harry Potter/Voldemort
Comments: 38
Kudos: 1214
Collections: Chamber of Secrets' Winter Exchange (2019)





	Something in my heart then crystallised

**Author's Note:**

  * For [remaya](https://archiveofourown.org/users/remaya/gifts).



> I wrote this as part of the winter exchange in the tomarry/harrymort discord server, and I had so much fun!! It ended up a few thousand words longer than I thought it would be, but I suppose that's part of the fun.
> 
> Title is from Jewel by Adam Melchor
>
>> Emeralds and rubies  
> They all mean nothing to me  
> The only pearls that drew me were your eyes
>> 
>> And when they looked right through me  
> It shook me and it moved me  
> Something in my heart then crystallised
> 
> To remaya, I hope you enjoy your gift :sluglove: 

Once, when Harry was seven, Aunt Petunia forgot to lock the cupboard door.

Earlier that day, Harry had watched as Uncle Vernon put up the Christmas tree in the living room, right by the window so everyone who passed by could see it glittering. Harry hadn’t been allowed to help or to even get very close, but he’d finished his chores early enough that he was allowed to curl up on the floor by the end of the couch and watch with wide eyes as his uncle assembled it piece by piece. 

Now, it’s almost midnight, and Harry is holding his breath as he pushes the cupboard door open. The soft creak of the door is enough to make him freeze, but no one moves upstairs. He lets out a careful sigh of relief and slowly shuts the door behind him.

Heart pounding, he ghosts through the dark hallway toward the living room, stopping in the doorway just to look.

On any given day, the living room is his least favorite room in the house, because it has the nicest furniture, which Harry isn’t allowed to touch unless it’s to help Aunt Petunia clean it, and it’s where Uncle Vernon likes to spend most of his time when he’s home. The worst is when he has to vacuum when Uncle Vernon is there, because his uncle likes to shout when Harry interrupts his newspaper-reading or his television-watching, and sometimes he hits.

But tonight… Tonight, the living room has been transformed. 

After Uncle Vernon put up the tree, Aunt Petunia had spent all afternoon putting up her newly bought decorations, stringing it with fairy lights and matching baubles made of glass and tin. Harry hadn’t been allowed to touch those either. When Dudley had wandered back inside, she’d called him into the living room and Harry had watched, something cold and queasy rising in his chest, as she placed a bauble in his hands and helped him hook it onto a branch.

When Dudley broke one, too excited to check if it was hanging properly, she’d cooed over him and checked his fingers to make sure the broken glass hadn’t cut him. And then she’d called Harry over to pick it up, and he’d had to wash his own cuts in the bathroom sink, using toilet paper to dry his hands so he wouldn’t stain any of Aunt Petunia’s hand towels. 

The memory of it, of the way Aunt Petunia had pressed a kiss to Dudley’s fingers and ran a hand through his hair, makes it difficult to breathe, but Harry shoves the feeling aside as best as he can. 

Because this isn’t about the Dursleys. 

This is about the tree, he thinks, and the way the lights that twine through its branches cast a soft, hazy glow into the air around it.

On near silent feet, Harry pads across the living room floor and sinks to his knees before the tree. He’s small for his age, and from this angle, it looks like a giant. With a trembling hand, he reaches out and brushes his fingertips against one of the baubles Dudley had placed. It’s smooth and cool to the touch, and he imagines what it’d be like if his own mother was here beside him on the floor, cradling his hand in hers.

He takes a shuddering breath, lets the thought go. It isn’t worth thinking of, and anyway, it hurts. 

Then he gets an idea.

Harry looks over his shoulder, listening hard for any sign the Dursleys might wake. When the house stays silent, Harry lowers himself to his stomach and crawls beneath the tree’s boughs, into the space where presents for Dudley will soon overflow. Once he’s under, he rolls onto his back. As he looks up, he feels as if he’s in a different world.

The space beneath the tree is dark and small. It feels almost like his cupboard, but it isn’t. It’s better. Because above him, woven into the deep green boughs, the fairy lights glitter like little stars in the darkened living room. 

It’s like magic, Harry thinks, and there’s a secret glee to the forbidden word, because it’s true. 

He doesn’t know how long he stays there, looking up at the lights. All he knows is the next time he opens his eyes, the tree is dark, and the pale light of dawn is streaming in through the window. With his heart in his throat, Harry scrambles out from under the tree and hurries back to his cupboard, socked feet making barely any noise against the carpet. 

As the door clicks shut behind him, Harry breathes out a quiet sigh of relief. He already misses the lights, but he tells himself it’s alright. One day, when he has a family of his own (and he _will,_ no matter what Dudley says), they’ll put up the biggest tree they can find, and it will be real, and he’ll make sure the lights will never go out.

Nearly fifteen years later, Harry is curled up on Ron and Hermione’s sofa, watching his friends bicker over the proper way to decorate their tree, which he’d helped them pick out this morning, as he cradles a cup of tea in his hands. An eclectic mix of home-made trinkets and clearly gifted or hand-me-down baubles fills a box on the floor, and Harry keeps finding his eyes drawn to it. 

It’s so different from anything he’s seen before.

Even at Hogwarts, which was worlds away from anything Harry knew from Privet Drive, the trees were meticulously decorated, uniform ornaments and fairy lights, sometimes provided by actual fairies, placed with obvious precision. 

In this box, he’s willing to bet that no two ornaments look exactly the same.

At the very top, there’s a vaguely angel shaped object made of cardboard and felt that Harry is certain Hermione made in primary school. Just beneath it, something like a lumos charm solidified shimmers. In one corner, miniature broomsticks rattle around in a bundle tied with string, though they look more like twigs with some dried grass glued to the ends than any of the brooms he’s seen on the market. 

As Harry stares, he wonders when each of them were made. He wonders how they’ve been cared for in the years since they were brought home, how they’ve been loved.

There’s a pressure in his chest, just beneath his ribs, and although he does his best to choke it back, there’s an ugly kernel of envy that he can’t quite kill no matter how he tries. One day, his class had made their own ornaments to bring home, clear plastic balls they’d dripped paint and glitter inside. 

He’d been proud of his, he remembers.

Unlike Dudley, who’d ended up with a glittery ball of greyish brown, Harry had planned his colors, choosing a deep purple and bright red that had swirled together into something beautiful. Aunt Petunia hung Dudley’s on the tree, right near the top. Harry’s had been tossed into the bin. 

Dudley had laughed, Harry remembers.

His hold on the cup in his hands tightens. He closes his eyes, breathes carefully.

“—right, Harry?”

Harry looks up to see his friends watching him. Ron is holding a string of acorns up to the tree, looking back at him with one eyebrow raised. 

“Erm, sorry,” Harry says. He sets the cup down before he breaks it. “I missed the question.” 

Ron sighs at him, rolling his eyes, though he can’t hide the fondness in his expression. Hermione, on the other hand, is looking at him as if he’s a puzzle, clearly having noticed his mood drifting.

“Hermione thinks my acorns are ugly—” Ron starts.

“That is _not_ what I said,” Hermione snaps as she whirls to face him, her concern forgotten.

“—and she thinks we should keep them on the back of the tree where no one will see them.”

“I just think we should prioritize the ornaments that are more eye catching,” Hermione explains. “Our tree isn’t very big, and—’

“See,” Ron says to Harry, grinning, “She hates them.”

“I do _not.”_ Hermione plants her hands on her hips, and her hair frizzes out. “Honestly, Ron.”

Harry ducks his head, laughing. “Where’d the acorns come from, anyway?” he asks.

Hermione tilts her head, as if this is a question that hasn’t occurred to her until now, and turns her curious eyes Ron’s way. Ron’s ears flush pink, but he’s smiling. 

“Well, we didn’t have a lot of money to buy ornaments, and if you aren’t doing it right, a lot of the conjured ones will fade before you even get them onto the tree,” he explains, voice even. Hermione nods, and Harry pulls his knees up to his chest. “So every year, Mum would turn us loose and we’d all try to make something out of what we could find for free.”

“When’d you make that one?” Harry asks.

“I was ten, I think,” Ron says, twirling the string. “Percy helped. Fred and George were convinced that was cheating, as if they didn’t work together every year.”

“So it was a competition?” Hermione asks. Ron laughs, shaking his head. 

“No,” he says. He pulls the string taut, and the acorns vibrate in place. “That was just Fred and George being pricks. They were mad because all they found that year was some shiny rocks, and they didn’t think to weave something out of twigs like Ginny did."

Harry smiles as he tries to imagine all the Weasley children picking over the countryside together. It’s enough to leave him feeling nostalgic for something he never had. 

“My dad liked to do something similar,” Hermione says as she digs through the box. She pulls out an ornament, the face of a reindeer glued together out of felt, with bells on the antlers, and holds it up for them to see. “I was home from school one day, too sick to do anything but lie about, and he sat with me and made a whole bunch of these to keep me from going mad.” 

Harry smiles again, something bright and burning lodged deep in his chest. Below it, though, that pit of envy comes gnawing back.

“What about you, Harry?” Ron asks as he strings his acorns near the top of the tree. Hermione watches him do it with a soft look in her eyes, all protests forgotten. “Did you ever make any?”

Harry swallows down the persistent lump in his throat, because it doesn’t belong here. “I did,” he says, picking at the sleeve of his jumper. His shoulders are tense, and he forces himself to relax. “They weren’t any good, though. They didn’t even make it onto the tree.”

When he looks, he sees Ron turn away, a dark look on his face, as if he’d forgotten the Dursleys existed. Hermione’s jaw is clenched tight. When she sees Harry watching her, she huffs. 

“Well,” she says forcefully, “if you relatives hated them, then I’m sure they were lovely.”

Harry laughs, he can’t help it. “Thanks, Hermione,” he says, smiling. Some of the envy burns away. Some of it doesn’t. “But it’s okay. They really weren’t anything special.”

Ron looks down at the box, then at Harry. “Would you like to help—?”

Before he can finish his question, Harry’s wand vibrates where it rests on the table, throwing a shower of silver and red sparks that shimmer across the floor, and a new silence falls over the room. Ron stills, suddenly tense again. Hermione makes a cut off noise of protest, as if she wants to say something but knows she shouldn’t. 

Harry sighs. 

“Maybe next time, guys,” he says. He accepts Hermione’s hug, pressing his face into her hair, and then lets Ron pull him into his own crushing embrace before stepping away to grab his wand. “It was good to see you.”

The last thing he sees before Tom’s magic pulls him away is the look of dismay Ron and Hermione share. 

“You’re early,” Harry says as soon as he’s regained his bearings. 

Tom is seated at his desk, as he usually is this early in the evening, and he barely looks up when Harry appears. “I wanted you here,” he says, and Harry very mindfully doesn’t give in to the rush of warmth at the confession.

“We have a deal,” Harry reminds him. Tom sighs, but Harry pushes on anyway. “I stay with you here, and in return, I get—”

“I know what we agreed to, Harry,” Tom says, voice tight. “What with you reminding me every time you—”

“Well _maybe,”_ Harry says, cutting the man off as he crosses his arms over his chest, “if you would actually fucking stick to the arrangement, I wouldn’t need to _remind_ you.”

Tom finally looks away from his work, the beginnings of a snarl on his face. When he actually looks at Harry, however, he falters. “Is everything alright?” he asks.

Harry is almost surprised enough by the question to lose his grip on his ire. Almost. “No, actually,” he says with forced patience. “You see, I was in the middle of something, because I was under the impression that we still had five hours left.”

Tom’s glare returns in full force. “As I said, I wanted you _here.”_

“Yeah?” Harry asks. “Well, I wanted to be with my _friends._ You know, to remind me of why I agreed to this fucking arrangement in the first place.”

“Having second thoughts, Harry?” Tom asks with narrowed eyes. Harry feels his scar twinge. “If so, you should let me know sooner rather than later. It’s been a few years since I’ve kept a standing army, but I’m sure I could cobble something together with enough warning.”

Harry clenches his jaw.

It’s difficult to argue with Tom when he leaps to the worst possible extreme.

“For Merlin’s sake, Tom,” Harry says with a sigh. “Why do you always have to be so dramatic?”

“Just reminding you of what’s at stake,” Tom says lightly, though his eyes glint red with the promise of violence. Not toward Harry, not anymore, but toward all the people whose only protection is Harry’s compliance. 

Harry only glares. Then he chooses to give in, just a little.

“It’s not as if they’re going to smuggle me out of the country if you let me stay with them too long,” he says. Tom’s fingers clench around his quill. “But if you’re really so concerned, you could always let me bring them here instead.”

“No,” Tom says flatly.

Harry rolls his eyes and collapses back onto the chaise that sits across the room from Tom’s desk, which he’s certain is kept here solely for his benefit. “You know,” he says, “I spend a lot of time every day convincing the world you’re not a heartless dictator. I’d really appreciate it if you didn’t try to prove me wrong at every turn.”

“If you’re so displeased, you can leave.”

“I can’t, actually,” Harry says as he lets his eyes fall shut. The wards of the manor press down upon him, and he relaxes into the feeling. “That’s the _point._ In fact, you worked very hard to make sure of it.”

“You aren’t a prisoner, Harry,” Tom tells him. 

Harry keeps his eyes closed. If he looks, he knows he’ll see that wounded look in Tom’s eyes, the one that makes him stay even though he has, in fact, received more than one offer to help smuggle him out of the country. He's almost entirely certain that look is false, but that doesn't make it any easier to resist. 

“I know,” he says, and he does mean it.

He could leave one day and never come back. He could shatter the wards, break his wand, hide somewhere Tom will never find him. He _could_ leave; he just doesn’t want to. 

“I know,” he says again, softer this time, as he opens his eyes.

As he expected, Tom is watching him with his expression carefully guarded. Harry smiles, small and soft, and Tom pushes away from his desk, strides toward him. He stops beside the chaise, looking down at him, and Harry laughs, already knowing what he wants. 

If he were in a worse mood, he’d make the man ask for it.

Instead, he pushes himself up until Tom can slot in behind him and then leans back against Tom’s chest, resting his head against Tom’s shoulder. Tom’s arms wrap around his waist, and Harry rests his hands over Tom's, holding them in place and lacing their fingers together. He feels it when some of the tension leaves Tom’s body, and he lets his own breathing slow to match the steady rise and fall of Tom’s chest. 

“You know,” Harry says, once enough time has passed that he can feel Tom beginning to doze beneath him, “this room is the perfect size for a tree.” 

“A tree?” Tom asks, dubious. 

“Yeah,” Harry says. When he gets no response, he looks up over his shoulder to see Tom is watching him with furrowed brows. “You know, a Christmas tree.”

He looks toward the corner of the room, which is bare but for a spare chair that no one ever uses. Tom follows Harry’s gaze then asks, voice flat, “Why?”

“Well, you’re always in here, and so I—”

“Why do you want a Christmas tree?” Tom asks, impatient. Harry frowns, unsure how to answer. Tom continues, “I wasn’t aware you celebrate Christmas.”

“I don’t,” Harry says, and he does his best to keep the frown out of his voice. He shrugs, hating the way he feels small, suddenly, the burning pressure in his chest. “I just thought it’d be fun, is all.”

“Well,” Tom says as he runs his fingers through Harry’s hair, dragging his head back against his shoulder when his fingers catch on a snarl. “I suppose there’s nothing stopping you.”

“So you wouldn’t…” Tom’s fingers pause, and Harry swallows down the lump in his throat. “You wouldn’t be interested in helping?” 

Tom snorts, and Harry supposes that’s answer enough. He’s not surprised, not really. It was a ridiculous idea, after all. He only… 

With a sigh, he lets his eyes fall shut, lets his mind drift off to the feel of Tom petting at his hair and tells himself it’s enough. 

Harry decides to put up a tree almost a week later, while Tom is away on a diplomatic visit. He'd asked if Harry wanted to come with, but Harry had declined, knowing he’d be terrible company until he’s dealt with the Tree Issue. 

With help from Dobby, he’d selected a tree perfectly sized to fit in Tom’s study and set it up under a stasis to keep it looking healthy.

Now, Harry stands before the bare tree with a box of ornaments, also acquired with Dobby’s assistance, at his feet. All that’s left to do is place them, but he can’t bring himself to start. 

This isn’t what he wanted, he thinks as he stares up at the tree.

He thinks of Ron and Hermione bickering over their ornaments, thinks of the way Aunt Petunia would cheer whenever Dudley placed one on his own. His chest feels tight, suddenly; he doesn’t want to do this alone. 

He imagines what Tom might say if he walked through the door just now. He might laugh, Harry thinks. He’d probably sigh, as if Harry is being ridiculous. And he is, he knows. It’s just a tree, and yet… He wanted to share it, Harry admits to himself, and something like shame rises at the thought, threatening to swallow him whole if he lets it. This isn’t about the tree, not really. It’s about doing something together, something Harry has never done before. But Tom isn’t here to share it with him.

Tom thinks it’s stupid, and maybe he’s right. 

With a huff, Harry swipes the back of his hand across his eyes. 

He doesn’t want to do this. He feels foolish, standing here in an empty study before an empty tree. What’s the point?

Vanishing the ornaments, Harry raises his wand to get rid of the tree as well. Only, he can’t bring himself to do it. Tom won’t be back until tomorrow night, he reasons as his hand clenches around his wand. As long as he gets rid of it before then, it’ll be as if this never happened. 

It’ll be fine.

He doesn’t get rid of it.

And then Tom comes home a day early. Harry doesn’t realize he’s back until he’s passing through the dining room on his way to the kitchen, only to halt in the doorway at the sight of Tom seated at the table, which is set for two. 

Tom looks up from where he’s smoothing his napkin across his lap. “Join me?” he asks, gesturing toward the table. 

Harry nods, sits down across from him. As soon as he does, food appears on the table, and he watches as Tom serves himself.

He wonders if Tom has seen the tree.

“So,” Tom says once they’ve both had a chance to start eating, “I noticed you had a productive day.”

Harry looks up from where he’s pushing his food around his plate. He’s gotten much better at eating full meals every day over the past years, but he feels off today, and he can’t quite bring himself to eat as he should. 

“What?” he asks.

Tom sets down his fork, holds his gaze. “You put up a tree.”

Ah. That answers that question. 

“Oh.” Harry blinks. He looks back to his plate. “Yeah, I did.”

“You didn’t decorate it,” Tom says. He folds his hand across the table and leans forward. “I was under the impression that decoration was the point.”

“It was,” Harry says. He spears an olive on his fork and shoves it into his mouth, hoping the break in conversation will lead Tom to drop the subject. But by the time he’s done chewing, Tom is still watching him. Harry sighs. “I don’t know. I guess I decided I didn’t want to do it anymore.”

Tom looks concerned now. He reaches across the table, presses his fingers to the back of Harry’s hand. “I can find someone to decorate it, if you’re uncertain of your ability. I’m certain Lucius would have some recommendations."

Harry snorts. “Um, no,” he says, attempting a grin that fades far too quickly. “No, that’s not it.”

Tom furrows his brows. “Harry—”

“It was stupid,” Harry says firmly. He pulls his hand back into his lap. Tom’s hand, now empty, clenches into a fist on the table, and Harry returns to eating, slipping back into the manners his aunt had so carefully impressed upon him all those years ago. “I’ve just never—”

He clears his throat, cutting off the confession before it can be fully formed. 

Tom knows enough about the Dursleys that he’d promised to _handle_ them should Harry only say the word, but he doesn’t know everything. He doesn’t need to. When he finally looks Tom’s way again, he very deliberately ignores the concern that still lingers in his expression. 

“It’s probably in the way, isn’t it?” Harry shakes his head, huffing out a quiet laugh. A sick curl of embarrassment blooms in his stomach. Tom must think he’s so— “I’ll get rid of it, don’t worry.”

“Don’t,” Tom says quickly. When Harry looks up at him, there’s a faint flush across his cheeks and the bridge of his nose, as if he didn't mean to respond so fast. Harry drops his gaze to his plate again. “Don’t get rid of it.”

“Okay,” Harry says, quiet, gripping his fork much harder than necessary. He can’t hide the smile pulling at his lips. When he glances across the table, Tom is eyeing him as if he’s a puzzle waiting to be solved, and Harry feels something warm settle in him. The embarrassment is choked away. “I won’t.” 

The next time Harry sees Ron and Hermione is only a few days later at a café in Diagon. While he only meant to stay for a quick lunch, as he had no idea they’d be here, he quickly tosses out the rest of the day’s plans in favor of making up for lost time with his friends. For nearly an hour, Harry listens happily as Hermione tells him of the newest campaign she’s planning, entertained by Ron’s increasingly crude and creative jabs at its opposers. Then, as Hermione abandons them to corner one of her superiors who just walked in the door, Ron drops a bomb on him.

“So,” he says, idly tracing one finger around the rim of his cup, “About Voldemort’s visit last night—”

Harry freezes. “What?” 

“—I know he’s domesticated now, but a warning would have been nice.” 

“You’re joking,” Harry says, incredulous. Tom has not once shown any interest at all in getting to know his friends. In fact, he’s gone entirely out of his way to avoid it. “He came to visit you?”

“Yeah?” Ron looks at him, confused. “He didn’t tell you? He was asking all sorts of questions about—”

“Ron,” Hermione hisses as she drops into the seat beside him, “Don’t you remember what he said? It’s supposed to be a secret.”

“What?” Ron frowns. “Oh. Oh! Right.”

Harry looks between them, not sure how he feels. “Let me get this straight,” he says, skeptical. “Lord Voldemort came to talk to you yesterday. While he was there, he told you to keep this visit a secret from me, and you’re _actually_ going to listen to him?”

Ron tilts his head, as if conceding the point.

“Well.” Hermione looks distressed. “Yes, but— Oh, Harry, it’s supposed to be a _surprise.”_

Harry leans back in his chair. “A good surprise?” he asks, tentative. 

Ron and Hermione glance at each other, both trying not to smile. 

Hermione nods.

“I didn’t believe it either,” Ron says with a shrug. “But he seemed sincere. Maybe you haven’t been wrong all those times you told us he isn’t a complete monster.”

“Huh,” Harry says, thoughtful.

“So you’re not upset?” Hermione asks.

Harry smiles and says, “No, I’m not upset.”

The conversation moves on, then, and Harry does his best to focus on it, setting all of his questions aside. Until he gets the chance to speak to Tom, he’ll simply have to trust that his friends are right and that whatever he has in store, everything will be alright.

Later that night, as Harry lies in bed, facing Tom, he decides to bring it up. He’s learned by now that Tom is most likely to answer any questions truthfully when they’ve just had sex. It’s manipulative, sure, but it’s also effective, and he has no qualms about using any tools at his disposal when it comes to Tom.

“Ron and Hermione told me you went to visit them,” Harry says. 

Tom groans, sounding half asleep. “Did they?”

“Were they wrong?”

“No.” Tom turns his head, blinks his eyes open. “They weren’t.”

Harry reaches out, wraps his hand around Tom’s wrist. “Why did you go visit them?”

“I wanted to know what was wrong,” Tom tells him. He lets Harry’s grip on his wrist stay in place. “You seemed upset.”

Now it’s Harry’s turn to be evasive. “Did I?”

Tom frowns, turns his wrist in Harry’s hold so he can grip Harry’s hand in turn, and pulls him closer. “You didn’t decorate your tree. I was curious.” 

“So you went to talk to my friends?” Harry asks, half-heartedly upset that Tom went behind his back, though he can’t _really_ blame him. He knew what he was getting into when he entered this arrangement. 

“So I went to talk to your friends,” Tom confirms.

“You could have asked me,” Harry says, doing his best to keep from pouting. 

“Would you have answered?”

Harry looks at their joined hands, grips tighter. “No.”

“Exactly,” Tom says as he leans forward, pressing a kiss to Harry’s forehead. “I know you, darling.” 

Harry pulls away, turns over so his back is facing Tom. “So what now?”

“Perhaps we should talk about it,” Tom says. He reaches forward, presses one hand against Harry’s back. Harry shivers.

“Do we have to?” he asks.

“Yes, I think so.” Tom scoots closer, until he can tangle his legs with Harry’s, until every breath caresses the back of his neck. “Tell me, darling. Please.” The last word is so quiet, Harry almost doesn’t hear it. But he does. 

“Why?” Harry asks. “You already know.”

“Not everything.” When Harry remains unconvinced, Tom sighs and says, “I want _you_ to tell me.”

Harry curls in on himself, pulling his knees close to his chest, and Tom follows, a line of heat pressed against his back. 

“I keep forgetting,” Harry says softly. He keeps forgetting that this _thing_ with Tom isn’t real, is the result of a contract he signed when he was just a boy, young and tired enough that anything sounded better than continuing to fight this war he was born into. He wonders if Tom ever forgets, or if he cares at all. His eyes burn, and he blinks back tears. “Or remembering, maybe. You thought it was stupid.”

“I did,” Tom admits, voice soft.

Harry swallows down the lump in his throat. There’s another question he needs to ask, but he doesn’t want to. He doesn’t want to hear the answer. He asks anyway. “But not me?”

“No, darling,” Tom says, and Harry shudders, presses one fist to his mouth and bites at his knuckles. “No, I don’t think you’re stupid. I think…”

Harry clenches his eyes shut. He doesn’t know if he can bear it, but he asks, “Think what?”

“I want you to tell me when you want things,” Tom tells him, and he pulls Harry closer against his chest, forcing him to uncurl, just a little. “I want to give them to you.”

Harry takes a shivery breath, then another. He reaches back, grabs Tom’s arm and pulls it forward across his chest, lacing their fingers together. “You’re going to laugh.”

“I won’t.”

“It’s _stupid.”_

Harry doesn’t want to say it; he doesn’t want to put it into words. He doesn’t want to give Tom the chance to reject him for real.

“Harry,” Tom says, pressing a kiss to his hair. “Darling, please.”

Harry sighs, knowing he can’t hold out forever. He says, feeling uncomfortably like a child, “I want you to decorate a Christmas tree with me.”

Tom’s arms tighten around him. “I can do that.”

For some reason, though he really shouldn’t be, Harry is surprised the next day when Tom arrives back to the manor long before dinner.

“Tom?” Harry asks. He sets his letter aside and stands to meet Tom in the doorway of his study, pressing a kiss to the corner of his mouth. Tom’s hands curl over his waist. “I thought you wouldn’t be back until later.”

“I decided to cancel my plans.”

Harry pulls away, just a little. He looks up at Tom, knowing he’s doing a terrible job of masking his surprise. “But you never—”

Tom drags one hand through Harry’s hair, pulls him onto his toes and into a kiss, a real kiss that leaves him just a little bit breathless by the end of it. “We have a tree to decorate, don’t we?” he asks, and Harry feels a startled sort of happiness rush through him, catching him off guard. 

“You canceled your plans to decorate a tree with me?” he asks, because he needs to be sure.

Tom sighs at him, but he’s smiling, and his eyes are warm. Harry darts forward, closing the small amount of space between them as he wraps his arms around Tom’s neck. He lifts his feet off the floor and laughs when Tom grunts in surprise at the sudden weight hanging off of him.

“It’s important to you,” Tom explains, and Harry holds tighter. Tom laughs, then, and pries his hands between Harry’s arms and his neck. “Hold my neck any tighter, darling, and you’re going to strangle me.” Harry smiles sheepishly. He drops back to his feet, but Tom doesn’t let him go far as he keeps hold of his arms. “I’m certain your friends would be pleased by my loss of life, but I have a new treaty with France to draft, and—”

Harry snorts, jabbing his fingers into Tom’s ribs. “Stop it,” he says, laughing when Tom tightens his hold to keep him from doing it again. “If I wanted to kill you, I’d find a much better method than _strangulation,_ thank you very much. And anyway, you’d just come back, so—”

“Exactly,” Tom says, smug, “I’d come back to find I’d lost at least a week’s worth of time to work, and then I’d have to hunt you down—”

“Oh, please.” Harry presses his forehead against Tom’s shoulder, hiding a smile. “As if you could catch me.”

Tom very pointedly wraps his arms around Harry, pulling him into a proper hug. “I caught you before,” he says, voice low, one hand drifting down to rest at the small of Harry’s back. 

Harry shivers. “Shut up,” he says, grinning. “You didn’t _catch_ anything. In fact, I distinctly remember _offering.”_

He feels it when Tom presses a kiss to his hair. Then, Tom’s hand shifts even lower. “Offering, hmm? And what are you offering now?”

Harry laughs, delighted, but he refuses to let himself be distracted. Instead, he breaks free of Tom’s hold, taking a rather large step back. “Oh no,” he says, grinning when Tom narrows his eyes at the loss, “you don’t get to distract me today.”

“Distract you?” Tom presses one hand to his heart, as if wounded by the suggestion. Harry scoffs. “I would never.”

“Right,” Harry says, putting as much skepticism into the word as he can, but Tom only smirks at him. Before Harry can lose track of the evening entirely, because he knows Tom will keep pushing until Harry is either flat on his back before the fireplace or bent over Tom’s desk if Harry lets him, he turns on his heel to stride toward the tree. As fun as either of those positions tend to be, he refuses to let Tom win today. _“Anyway,”_ he says pointedly, “we have work to do, so if you don’t mind…” 

Tom laughs. When Harry looks back over his shoulder, he sees Tom has left the doorway to trail after him, his hands tucked into the pockets of his robes. When he catches Harry looking, he raises an eyebrow, and Harry flushes as he turns back to the tree.

Now that he’s here, looking up at the bare tree with Tom at his side, he’s suddenly unsure. 

What if he messes up?

What if Tom laughs at him?

What if—

“So, where do we start?” Tom asks.

Harry bites at his lip, and he can feel the anxiety seeping in already. “I don’t know,” he confesses. 

“You don’t know?” Tom asks, skeptical. 

Harry ducks his head, frustration welling up in him as his shoulders tense. He hates how quickly Tom can do this to him. Or, he thinks to be more fair, he hates how the Dursleys can still do this to him, even though he’s been free of them for years. 

“Well, it’s not as if I’ve done it before,” he bites out. He doesn’t want to lash out at Tom, especially not when he’s going out of his way to do this for him, but he doesn’t know how to explain. He doesn’t know how to get this coiled, angry energy to leave him alone. 

“Never?” Tom asks.

“What, you mean Ron and Hermione didn’t tell you?” Harry asks with a scoff.

He feels Tom press one hand between his shoulders, rising to cover the back of his neck with his broad palm, and he hates the way he flinches away. With a shuddering breath, he leans back into Tom’s hand, lets the tension in his shoulders drain away.

“They didn’t,” Tom says, voice gentle. Harry can feel the way Tom hesitates, still learning how to be gentle after he’s spent decades as anything but. “Would _you_ like to tell me?”

Harry swallows down the sudden lump in his throat. “Can I tell you later?” he asks, and he’s proud of how steady his voice is. 

“You can,” Tom says, and Harry can hear the smile in his voice. “In the meantime, I’ve been forced to sit through enough winter holidays with the Malfoys to start us off.”

Harry tries to picture that and fails. “The Malfoys celebrate Christmas?” he asks, struck by the absurdity of the possibility. He knows some magical families do, but he never imagined that particular family to be one of them.

Tom tsks. “They do not,” he says, but he sounds amused. “However, you’ll find the Christians were not the first to decorate trees, and while it is certainly not the tradition most purebloods follow, any Malfoy worth his name will tell you that only a fool would turn down an occasion to receive tribute from his peers while showing off his superior sense of style.” 

Harry can’t help but laugh. “I’m sorry,” he says, snorting when Tom casts him a look of mild offense. “I’m just trying to imagine you putting up fairy lights while wearing your snake face, and I can’t—”

His next words are strangled by laughter, and Tom sighs, entirely put upon. 

“Don’t be absurd,” he says. “I meant when I was a student.” 

Harry gets hold of himself at last, smothering the last of his giggles with one hand over his mouth. Tom doesn’t often talk about his days at Hogwarts, and so the majority of what Harry knows is what he learned from the diary in second year and Dumbledore’s lessons in his sixth. As he takes a deep breath, pressing his lips together in what one might call a terrible attempt to hide a smile, he peers up at Tom through his lashes and asks, “Tell me more?” 

Tom rolls his eyes, but he obliges, holding out one hand. Harry takes it, and Tom pulls him closer, until Harry can tuck himself under Tom’s arm and wrap his own around Tom’s waist as the man looks at the tree with a considering gaze. 

“I never cared much for Christmas,” he begins, and Harry leans heavier against him. “We celebrated it at the orphanage, but it was more out of duty than faith, and it was never very pleasant. By the time I started spending my winters at Hogwarts, I had come to hate the season.”

“Then how—?”

“Abraxas Malfoy,” Tom says, and he sounds almost wistful. He pulls Harry more snug to his side. “Once he determined I was worthy of his friendship, he refused to let me spend another winter ‘skulking about the empty castle,’ to use his own words. So he invited me to spend the holidays with his family. I remember thinking it was so strange…”

“I know what you mean,” Harry says, thinking back to the first time he stayed at the Burrow. It hadn’t seemed real to him then, and sometimes it still doesn’t.

“I suppose you do,” Tom says. 

He swallows heavily, and Harry thinks he might attempt to apologize. That, he knows he can’t bear. Not yet, anyway. He asks, “Did he make you decorate?”

Tom snorts. “He did,” he says, and the wistfulness is back. Harry thinks his heart might beat right out of his chest. “He had plenty of House-Elves to order about, but he said it was more fun when I did it. He was always doing that, you see. Encouraging me to act like a person, he called it.”

“I’m glad,” Harry says, voice soft. He’s no longer surprised that he means it. “I’m glad you had that. Him.”

"So am I,” Tom says.

When Harry looks up, Tom isn’t looking at the tree, but is instead gazing down at him with an expression so open it makes Harry want to hide. It makes it difficult to breathe, and he feels something mortifyingly like tears sting at his eyes.

He blinks them back.

“Alright,” he says, bright with cheer he doesn’t quite feel, but which isn’t necessarily out of place. “Since you’re the expert, apparently, where do we begin?”

By the look on Tom’s face, he knows exactly what Harry is doing, but he lets it happen anyway; the strange mood passes as gently as it settled in.

“First,” Tom says, brandishing his wand, “we need ornaments.”

He sounds so serious that Harry can’t help but grin as he draws his own wand. “Ron said that conjured ornaments don’t last very long,” he says.

Tom scoffs. “Nonsense,” he says. The smirk on his face is definitely haughty, but Harry has long since resigned himself to Tom’s nature. And anyway, he doesn’t mind it. “They last plenty long when you have the power to back them up.”

Harry rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling.

“Show me,” he says, and Tom does.

For the most part, they work well together.

More than once, Tom tries to hide all the red and gold ornaments Harry conjured at the back of the tree, but Harry stops him every time by kissing him into submission, which inevitably leads to distraction. As he traces one finger over his kiss-swollen lips, he figures this probably isn’t a very good way to keep Tom from doing it again. But he enjoys it too much to stop.

Later, when Harry attempts to charm the tree’s needles a bold, Gryffindor red, Tom elects to wrestle him to the floor instead of disarming him the usual way, and they get distracted again. 

Finally, they’ve placed as many decorations on the tree as is physically possible, and while it may not be as neatly designed as the trees Aunt Petunia used to decorate, or the trees a Malfoy might deign to put in their home, he loves it anyway.

This is mine, Harry thinks as he stares up at the tree, something fierce and burning settling in his chest. 

This is _his,_ and no one can take it from him.

Behind him, Tom is sprawled across the chaise, having claimed he was too tired to go on once only the lower branches were left unadorned. When Harry accused him of sitting out so he could look his fill as Harry bent over to place the last of their ornaments, he’d scoffed, but he hadn’t denied it. 

When he looks over his shoulder, he sees Tom watching him, a smug sort of contentment clear in his grin. Harry huffs, but he’s too pleased with Tom to be truly annoyed. Then he reaches out a hand, inviting Harry closer. A bubble of warmth rising in him, Harry goes.

He drops himself onto Tom’s chest, grinning when the man lets out a pained grunt as Harry’s elbow digs into his ribs. He squirms as Tom wraps his arms around him, settling into his hold. 

“I thought Lord Voldemort didn’t cuddle,” Harry says.

While all evidence points to the contrary, he’s willing to let Tom hold onto the delusion that Harry is the clingy one. Or, he _was._

“Lord Voldemort can do what he likes,” Tom tells him, disgruntled. 

Harry snorts, and Tom tugs sharply at his hair, soothing away the sting moments later by rubbing a gentle hand across the back of his neck. With a quiet, happy sigh, Harry turns his head to look back at the tree. They lit a fire a few hours ago, and in the flickering light, the tree shines. 

“What are you thinking about?” Tom asks, one hand petting at Harry’s hair.

“The tree,” Harry says. He looks up at Tom, but Tom is no longer watching him. Instead, he’s looking at the tree, as if attempting to find what Harry sees in it. “You didn’t have to decorate it with me, you know. I was fine.”

“I know,” Tom tells him, “but I wanted to.”

Harry smothers a laugh in Tom’s chest. “You wanted to waste an afternoon decorating a tree for a Muggle holiday you don’t celebrate?” he asks.

Tom casts him an annoyed look. “No,” he says, tugging softly at Harry’s hair again. “You know what I meant.” 

Harry sighs, sinks further into Tom’s hold. “Yeah,” he says, voice soft, smiling, “I do.”

For a moment, he wonders if Tom will stop there. But of course he doesn’t. “Are you ready to talk about it?” he asks carefully.

Harry taps an anxious rhythm against Tom’s chest. “I guess.”

Tom uses his grip on Harry’s hair to lift his face from his chest, forcing him to meet Tom’s gaze. “You don’t have to,” he says, and Harry is impressed that not even a hint of reluctance sneaks into his voice. 

“It’s okay,” Harry says, and he’s surprised to find that he means it. He tangles his legs with Tom’s. “You know about the Dursleys…” He traces a mindless pattern across Tom’s chest with one finger, stopping only when Tom grabs hold of his hand, keeping it still. 

“I do,” Tom says, and for all that he does a remarkable job of controlling himself, Harry can hear the anger in his voice. 

“Well, they used to put up a tree every year.” Harry closes his eyes, remembers what it was like to stand in the doorway to the living room, at the edge of a family that doesn't want him. “I was never allowed to touch it, but every year, I would watch as Dudley helped Aunt Petunia decorate. It should have just been one more awful thing, but it wasn’t. It was different.” 

“I’m sorry, darling,” Tom says, and Harry grips tight at his hand, until his nails must surely be digging into this skin, but Tom doesn’t protest. 

“He didn’t even _want_ to help,” Harry says, and the words feel as if they cut at his throat as he speaks them. “He complained every year, said he wanted to go back to playing, that it was stupid. And I—” He cuts himself off, clenches his jaw and focuses on breathing. 

“I could still kill them,” Tom offers. 

Harry snorts. “Tom,” he chides, but he’s smiling, “you promised.”

“I know,” Tom says. “But if you ever change your mind…” 

“I’ll remember.”

A moment passes, and Tom jostles him. “Alright, then,” he says with mock impatience. “Finish your story.”

Harry digs his chin into Tom’s chest until he winces and pats at Harry’s head in apology.

“I always thought their tree was the prettiest thing I’d ever seen. Until I got to Hogwarts, at least. I used to dream about putting up a tree of my own.” He closes his eyes, and he can still see the way the living room would glow. “I would sit in my cupboard and remember the lights.”

Tom’s hold on him tightens, and he presses a firm kiss to Harry’s forehead. He whispers, “Harry…” But he doesn’t say anything more.

“I told myself that I’d have a family of my own, one day,” Harry continues. He squeezes Tom’s hand, then relaxes his grip. “That we’d decorate a tree together and it’d be better than anything the Dursleys ever made.”

“Well,” Tom says, scratching lightly at Harry’s scalp, “I suppose congratulations are in order; you’ve fulfilled one of your childhood goals. Not everyone can claim that, you know.”

Harry hums in pleasure. Half muffled by the way his face is buried in Tom’s chest, he says, “Two of my childhood goals.”

Tom’s hand stills. He lifts it away, and Harry sighs at the loss. “What?”

Harry props his chin on his hands, looks into Tom’s eyes and smiles. “You care about me,” he says, and it isn’t a question. It doesn’t need to be. 

Tom swallows. He darts his gaze to the tree then back to Harry’s face. “I do.”

“Good.” Harry leans forward, presses a kiss to Tom’s jaw. “I care about you too.”

“Harry—”

“I know what you are, Tom,” Harry says, because he knows what Tom is going to say. “I know what you’ve done.”

“You signed the contract to save your friends,” Tom tells him, voice flat, “because if you didn’t, the war would never end.”

Harry sighs. “I did,” he says, because it’s true. But this isn't the only truth. Because it’s been years, and people change. “But that’s not why I’m here. Not anymore. Not really.” 

“How can you—?”

“You said I should tell you when I want things,” Harry says, interrupting. Tom nodes, hesitant, unsure where Harry is going. Harry lays his head back down on Tom’s chest, listens to the sound of his heart beating. “What do you want, Tom?”

For a moment, he thinks Tom won’t answer. Then, Tom’s hand comes to rest atop his head. Not holding, just resting. Harry lets his eyes drift shut. “I want you here,” Tom says, voice soft. He says it like it’s a secret, like it’s something to be ashamed of. “I want you to be with me, but not because you signed a contract.” 

Harry feels as if his heart is too big for his chest, suddenly. He pulls Tom’s hand closer, until he can press a kiss to his palm. 

He smiles and says, “I can do that.”


End file.
